Film lovers are bidding farewell to another beloved patriarch and talented character actor this week: Eli Wallach.
The 98-year-old, multiple award-winner died in his Manhattan home on June 24.
A little shifty, a little raspy and always endearing, Wallach always bore a singular glint in his eye and mischievous grin, portraying villains, crooks, little old Jewish men and other "ethnic" characters.
He came to prominence on Broadway, where he won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Mangiacavallo in Tennessee Williams’s The Rose Tattoo (1951), and he performed in more than 20 Broadway shows since the '40s — many opposite wife Anne Jackson.
Wallach's late-career film appearances were no less feisty and included Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, The Godfather III, Analyze This and Analyze That, as Jelly — "he stabbed himself in the back four times and threw himself off a bridge” — and Bullets over Broadway, as Nick Valenti. Some of his more memorable roles include the following:
